


An Empty Glass Is An Ugly Mirror

by clotpolesonly



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Derek and Kate are married, Emotional Infidelity, F/M, Hurt Derek, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Lydia is self-aware, Past Lydia Martin/Jackson Whittemore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-23
Updated: 2018-11-23
Packaged: 2019-08-28 01:46:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16714180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clotpolesonly/pseuds/clotpolesonly
Summary: Lydia didn’t know why she didn’t see it before. The signs were so clear in retrospect, all the little things that added up. How could she have been blind enough not to notice? She had only been working with Derek forten monthsnow, after all, and very nearly in love with him for six of them.Probably entirely in love, if she were to be honest with herself, which she tried to be nowadays. She had spent far too long lying to herself so that she could lie to everyone else and it had done no one any good. She didn’t want to be that person anymore.She didn’t want to be the kind of person that could look into Kate Argent-Hale’s face and see herself.





	An Empty Glass Is An Ugly Mirror

**Author's Note:**

> another fic for my Bad Things Happen bingo card, _Domestic Abuse + Dydia_ , and the first time i've written this ship! also the first time i've written a fic without a happy or at least _hopeful_ ending, but hey the prompt pretty much demanded that it be unrelentingly sad, lol. and i used it to work through a bit of my Jydia feels and showcase exactly how much Lydia grew and matured and improved from her early days (even if it is an AU setting).
> 
> ps. shout out to Thumper for being pretentious and a firm believer in one liners because it makes you a title wizard and i yet again owe you my first born child

Lydia didn’t know why she didn’t see it before. The signs were so clear in retrospect, all the little things that added up. How could she have been blind enough not to notice? She had only been working with Derek for _ten months_ now, after all, and very nearly in love with him for six of them.

Probably entirely in love, if she were to be honest with herself, which she tried to be nowadays. She had spent far too long lying to herself so that she could lie to everyone else and it had done no one any good. She didn’t want to be that person anymore.

She didn’t want to be the kind of person that could look into Kate Argent-Hale’s face and see herself.

Lydia tossed back the last of her champagne. It wasn’t exactly a dignified gesture, but here, tucked away in a garishly decorated alcove down the hall from the main holiday party, she didn’t have to worry about anyone seeing it. She needed the liquid courage for what she was about to do anyway. And to quell the sick feeling she always got in the pit of her stomach when she remembered her noxious high school persona.

Queen bee, she thought bitterly. As if.

She kept a hold of her champagne flute once the alcohol was gone; anything to keep her hands from being unoccupied. Her phone said it had only been six minutes and she knew it wasn’t reasonable to expect Derek to be there immediately, but she was still left anxiously tapping a fingernail against the empty glass.

It was another four long minutes, according to her phone—during which Lydia tried to will said empty glass to refill itself—before she heard the light clip of dress shoes against the office’s finely polished floors.

Derek rounded the corner, peering around to see where she’d gotten to. He was resplendent in a dark bespoke suit, tall and svelte and broad-chested, with a green tie that made his eyes pop even in the dimness of the unlit hallway. He looked strong. Confident.

He had ducked his head earlier, shoulders hunching just a bit as Kate had gripped his arm and laughed. Lydia didn’t even remember what it was that Kate had said to amuse herself—something backhanded and glib, a subtle enough dig that no one else had recognized it for what it was. But Lydia had. She had too much experience with backhanded compliments not to.

And she had spent too long studying every facet of Derek’s face to not notice how it closed off before he put a smile back on it.

“Lydia,” Derek said as he slid into the alcove. It wasn’t particularly spacious, but it was out of sight and out of earshot, which was all that mattered to her. “What’s this about? Your text sounded kind of urgent.”

Lydia shifted on her feet, fighting the rising tide of her pulse. She could face down a jury and cross-examine a hostile witness without missing a beat, but something about being this close to Derek always got under her skin.

“I just want to talk to you about something,” she said. “Something important.”

Derek leaned back against the wall and waved a hand. “If it’s something about the McKinnon case,” he started, “I know you like to be on top of things, but really, Lydia, it can wait until Monday. This is supposed to be a party! You should be having fun for once. You know you work too—”

“Does Kate know you’re out here?”

Derek stuttered to a stop, face going slack with a surprise that was too close to alarm not to be alarming in itself. The hitch only lasted the briefest of seconds. His hand fell. Then the smile made a reappearance.

“I think she got snagged by Stiles at the snack table,” he said. “She’ll probably be stuck there for an hour if I don’t rescue her. You know how hard it is to get him to stop talking once he’s on a roll. I should probably—”

If he was going for nonchalant, he missed. He tried to slide out the way he’d come, but Lydia shifted to block his path. She didn’t miss how his jaw tightened or the anxious way his eyes flicked over her shoulder, back toward the party.

“She doesn’t,” Lydia said. “Does she? You didn’t tell her. Because you knew that, if you did, she wouldn’t let you come. She would never let you meet up alone with another woman.”

Derek laughed, a sharp and unpleasant sound that was nothing like the warm chuckle Lydia could usually wring out of him with a well-placed comment under her breath.

“My wife doesn’t _let_ me do anything. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He stepped right and Lydia mirrored him.

“I know you’ve never once come out for drinks,” she said. “Not with me, or Scott and Stiles, or Isaac, or anybody else in the office. You always say you’ve got to get home to the wife, when I know for a fact that your wife works longer hours than you do and you’re going home to an empty house. Because you’re not allowed to go out without her.”

“Not _allowed?_ ” Derek parroted, eyebrows ratcheting upward to an impressive degree. “Jesus Christ, Lydia. Whatever this is, it’s way out of line. Now, if you’ll excuse me—” He pushed Lydia none too gently out of his way. “—I need to get back to my wife.”

Lydia followed him out of the alcove, champagne flute clenched tight in her fist. “Or what?” she called after him. “What would she do if you didn’t, Derek? Or if she came out and found you here with me? Because it seems to me like you’re afraid to find out. Or like you know _exactly_ what she would do, and you’re afraid of that too.”

Derek wheel around to face her again, though his eyes took a frantic detour to make sure that no one was around to overhear them. He advanced on her and, even with Lydia’s considerable heels, he still had enough of a height advantage to be intimidating as he leaned in close to hiss, “You don’t know _anything_ about my wife.”

Lydia wasn’t cowed; it wasn’t in her nature to be intimidated. Especially not by a man whom she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt would never hurt her, no matter what she said or how much it hurt him. And it was definitely going to hurt. Just hopefully not as bad as he was already hurting.

“I see the way she watches you,” Lydia said evenly. Derek twitched—a badly restrained reflex to look over his shoulder. “And the way you’re constantly checking in with her, like you need her permission to drink champagne at a party or talk to your own coworkers.”

Even in the relatively darkness, she could see the way Derek flushed. “I don’t need—”

“And the way she talks about you.” Lydia shook her head. “The work you do is crucial to the firm and important to you, but she waves it off like it’s child’s play and makes snide comments where all of your peers can hear.”

Derek ducked his head again. “That’s not what— She didn’t mean it like that,” he insisted. “It wasn’t—”

“It was dismissive, Derek,” Lydia told him with no room for disagreement in her tone. “It was knowingly cruel, and it was manipulative. It was designed to undermine you, to minimize your accomplishments and make you feel bad about yourself. Trust me, Derek, I should know. I know _all_ about people like Kate.”

“ _People like—_ ” Derek scoffed. He backed off, though. He ran a hand over his face, swallowed hard. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here,” he said tightly. “But you have no right to - to make assumptions about my wife or my marriage. I thought you were my friend, but apparently I was wrong.”

Lydia blinked back the sting in her eyes. “I _am_ your friend, Derek.”

“Then why are you _doing_ this?” he burst out. “Why would make these kinds of accusations about Kate when you don’t—”

“Because I _was_ Kate!”

Derek went still and silent all at once, his eyes wide and stunned. Suddenly chilled, Lydia crossed her arms tight over her chest, trying to chase away the shiver down her spine. It went too deep to guard against. The glass of her champagne flute was unforgivingly cold against her bare arm.

If this had been any other time, Derek would have offered her his coat, draped it over her shoulders until she was surrounded by his warmth and the smell of his cologne. He would have smiled at her and tugged on one of her curls until she smiled back or slapped his hand away. Now he was looking at her like he had never seen her before. That look lodged itself in Lydia’s throat like a blade, but she held her head high. It still took her two tries to make herself speak.

“I had a boyfriend in high school,” she finally managed. “And I watched him too. I kept him on a tight leash because he belonged to me. I played games with him, forced him to _work_ to earn my continued affection. I made it very clear that, if he didn’t live up to my expectations, I would drop him the instant someone better came along.”

Derek was shaking his head, but his voice came out weak when he said, “No. No, Kate would never—”

Lydia pushed on ruthlessly. “I found his insecurities and I took advantage of them. Everything he did, it only mattered if I said it did. He was only good enough if I said he was. I twisted him up in knots, made him feel like he needed me.”

She took a shaky breath. She didn’t think Derek was breathing at all. That was okay, as long as he was listening. As much as she didn’t want to say it, as high as the probability was that she would _lose_ him for this, she knew he needed to hear it.

“I cut him down until he broke,” she said, slowly and clearly, even as everything in her fought against the confession. “And then I made sure he knew how _lucky_ he was to have me.”

The distant noises of the party were loud between them, echoes of laughter and glasses clinking. The stem of her own glass was sweat-slick in Lydia’s fist and her fingers ached with how tightly she held it. But she didn’t look away. She didn’t blink.

For a long time, it seemed as if Derek wasn’t going to say anything at all. Like he had simply turned to stone right there in the middle of the empty hallway. Then, after what felt like a minor geological epoch had passed, he ripped his eyes away from her. His jaw clenched, throat working, and his hand was shaking when it came up to press against his mouth.

He turned away. “I need to get back.”

Just when she thought it couldn’t get any lower, Lydia’s heart sank a few more inches. “No, Derek, wait.”

Derek was halfway toward the conference hall, and he didn’t glance back as he said, “I’ve already been gone too long. There’s no way Kate hasn’t noticed. I need to—”

Lydia caught hold of Derek’s arm. He was twice her size, but she managed to pull him to a stop. He wouldn’t look at her.

“Don’t go in there,” Lydia pleaded. “ _Please,_ Derek, don’t go back to her. Why don’t you just stay out here and we can—”

“Stay here with _you,_ you mean?”

Lydia froze. Slowly, carefully, she forced her fingers to give up their hold on Derek because there was an accusation in his tone, one that rattled her more than she would care to admit. She had hoped that her affections had been less obvious—she had never been one to wear her heart on her sleeve—but there was no mistaking the implication.

“This is not about that,” she said delicately.

Derek’s pale eyes pinned her like a butterfly in a shadowbox, every bit as intense as they were in the courtroom. “Really? So you’re not trying to steal me away from her? You wouldn’t rather have me for yourself?”

Of course she would. Lydia had entertained an embarrassing number of fantasies over the last few months, most of them revolving around exactly that. But that wasn’t the point.

“Kate is toxic,” she said instead. “You don’t deserve this.”

Derek laughed again, even sharper and uglier than the first time. “And why should I think that you would be any better?”

That wasn’t a denial. It was, in fact, tacit confirmation of Lydia’s accusation. She couldn’t celebrate that, though—as if she would ever want to celebrate something like this—because his words were everything she had feared.

“I’m not like that,” she couldn’t help but say. The words scraped her throat on the way out, like painted pink nails on a chalkboard. “Not anymore. I have worked _so hard_ to make sure that I am never like that again. But, Derek, this isn’t about me.”

“Of course it’s about you,” Derek snapped. “You’re the one digging your nose in where it doesn’t belong, trying to break up my marriage just because you’re a jealous—”

“No, you do not get to do that,” Lydia cut across him, her temper finally catching up with her. “Not when I’m trying to help you. You do _not_ get to throw my feelings in my face as if you don’t have them too.”

Derek reeled back and, again, his eyes darted instinctively back toward the party—back toward Kate—like he was expecting her to be there with her ear at the door, listening to his every word. He stammered out, “No, Lydia, I don’t—”

“ _Bullshit._ ”

There was no way that he didn’t feel _something_ for her. Not when he sought her out at the end of his longest days, staying a few minutes later just so that he could say hi. Not when he always let her have his leftover Thai at lunch because he knew it was her favorite. Not when he offered her his coat even when if it left him shivering. Not when he smiled for her like he did for no one else. And certainly not when every long look she sent his way found him already looking back.

He looked at her now, cracked open and fraying at the edges, and he didn’t try to deny it again.

The fight went out of Lydia as quick as it had flared up. She was tired down to her bones and she wanted nothing more than to kick off her heels and wrap her arms around Derek, to feel the rise and fall of his chest against hers and the steady thump of his heart. But that wasn’t her right. None of this was.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have—”

Lydia didn’t know how to end that sentence. Interfered, maybe. Overstepped.

_Loved you._

She didn’t say any of those things. For a long moment, neither of them said anything at all.

The silence was broken by a loud crashing sound from down the hall, accompanied by a wave of mingled laughter and cries of dismay. Knowing their coworkers, it was probably Stiles accidentally knocking over one of the Christmas trees again.

The noise shook Derek from whatever daze he had fallen into. He straightened himself up, cleared his throat.

“I should get back,” he muttered.

“Derek.”

“No, Lydia, I really have been gone too long,” he insisted. “Kate will—“ He cut off abruptly, head shaking. It was a few seconds before he could bring himself to continue. “She won’t be happy.”

This time, Lydia didn’t stop him. She did call out after him, before he could reach the conference hall. He turned his head when she said his name, one hand on the door, but he didn’t turn around to face her again. That was okay. Somehow it was easier to say without his eyes on her.

“You deserve better than to be afraid of someone who claims to love you.”

His eyes found her then. “Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“Love me.”

Lydia shivered and pulled her arms in tighter. The glass clinked against her necklace. She said, “Yes.” Then: “Are you? Afraid of me.”

Derek’s fingers, flat against the door, curled tight, but the corner of his mouth turned up in a ghost of that soft smile he had always reserved for her. “More than anything.”

The door swung closed behind him, sealing him inside with the jarringly convivial atmosphere and leaving Lydia alone in the dark and the quiet. That was fine with her. She didn’t want to bear witness to what was about to happen anyway.

She could already picture in her mind’s eye the way Derek would hitch a wide, half-fake grin on his face, sidle up alongside Kate and press a kiss to her cheek. The way her eyes would narrow, scanning him head to toe for any evidence of wrongdoing as she laughed and made some greatly exaggerated quip about his drinking habits. The way Derek’s friends would laugh with her, even though he hadn’t had a sip of champagne all night. She had made sure of it.

She didn’t want to think about what else Derek had said or the haunted, hunted way he had said it— _She won’t be happy._

The empty glass hung limp in her fingers now, dangling precariously. She should return it to the waitstaff, she knew, but there was no way she was going back to the party. She hadn’t let the glass fall, but she couldn’t stop the tears and they were surely leaving hideous streaks of mascara all down her cheeks.

She scrubbed them off as best she could with the back of her hand. It wasn’t dignified, but at least out here there was no one to witness it. She could have this one moment to fall apart, to give in to the feeling of having been gutted and left behind. And then, by tomorrow morning, she would have herself pulled together. She had plenty of practice with that. She would be fine.

Her last thought, as she stooped to leave the champagne flute on the floor of the empty hallway, was that she truly hoped the same could be said of Derek someday, whether she was there to see it or not.

**Author's Note:**

> for the record, yes, i believe that Derek left Kate not too long after this. he and Lydia don't start anything right away. Derek needs time and space to process, to _heal,_ and Lydia is too conscious of how vulnerable he is to want to risk taking advantage of that even inadvertently. that doesn't mean they don't find their way back to each other eventually.
> 
>  
> 
> [also on tumblr](http://clotpolesonly.tumblr.com/post/180404086686/domestic-abuse-dydia-k-badthingshappenbingo)


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